I seem to catch more bass than pike on my tip ups. I am wondering if this indicates that I'm setting them too deep. Any one else experience this?
YEsterday I was setting in about 12fow and 9' down. This was at the bottom of a gradual transition from 5fow.
It just means the bass are in the area you are fishing. You can try to move and get away from them, but in my limited experience the bass feed when the pike don't and the other way around too. Rarely do I ever catch both steadily in one day, usually a majority of one species and maybe 1-2 of the other mixed in. Last season it seemed they were feeding every other day. I'd go one day and catch bass, then go the next day with everything the same and catch only pike, then the next day back to bass and so on.
If you don't want to catch bass, use dead bait. You'll drop to near zero bass.